Harsh Reflections: Finale

And with this strip, the Harsh Reflections arc comes to a close.

The build up to a TPK struck a nerve with folks (in a good way). Some agree with Sam’s decision, some do not. That aspect of this arc is working as intended. If you are a GM in particular, you have probably faced a similar situation. It’s a tough spot to be in. Do I let the dice fall or do I save this group for the sake of the story? I’ll be honest, I have done both. Neither choice is right or wrong. It just comes down to the decision in the moment. For the players, this group takes it in stride. Sure, they hate to lose characters but I think Charlie sums it up pretty well: For most, the experience is all about rolling dice with friends.

I have loved reading the discussion and debate in the comments as this arc moved along. I’m grateful that in an age where it is very easy to be an asshole on the internet, 99.9 percent of the folks who come here and leave comments go about it in a nice/respectful way. You’re great. Please keep being great.

Discussion (85) ¬

I am so lucky to have mostly had players like this, ones that take the game for what it is and not get super upset when things go against their characters. Having played with a couple of those people who take every attack or failed save personally I am even more thankful for my current players.

I’ve unfortunately been less lucky. My DM wasn’t exactly the best to begin with. She was more of a 4th ed. DM and decided to take up Pathfinder. I was playing as a Tiefling Magus at the time, and it was pretty fun. She had made a home-brew campaign where each player had a snow globe that represented an abnormality in the world. Anyway, she invited one of her Amp-Guard(Larping) buddies to a session, and for SOME reason let him play as a Vampire(Monster-Class), due to his explanation that it would be temporary. During the session, my character and another person’s character were infected with lycanthropy by a werewolf we encountered. Our DM decided that she would take control of us at certain points until we were cured. This I was pretty stoked about, because it sounded interesting. Unfortunately her Amp-Guard friend offered to make it so neither of us would hurt the group. Being an evil character, this included mentally dominating us and resetting both of us to level one via level damage. To say I was irritated was an understatement, since I had thought I was starting to make progress, only to be told, “Nope, you’re level 1 again.” It was at this point I was convinced my DM wasn’t a very good one, and decided to quit the group. That was another thing that weirded me out though, the fact that our DM let a couple players play with evil aligned characters in a party that was mostly good, neutral or neutral good, especially considering we had a paladin and cleric in our party. Anyway sorry for the rant, but this was pretty recent and it feels good to get it off my chest. This is actually my first time commenting on this comic and I have to say I love it Brian. I gotta say it’s one of the better D&D comics I’ve read so far, the other one being Daughter of The Lillies, which seems heavily influenced by it. Keep up the good work, I can’t wait to see how this arc continues to develop.

If it was me running the game, I probably would’ve changed the “Cultists don’t take prisoners” policy as a way to keep the game going. But I had a feeling they’d take it all in stride, and I would 2000 percent like to watch them go through a new session zero, although this is also a good point for a fade out, maybe an epilogue of Sam changing some of his plans and feeling guilty. Whether or not the group took it in stride, I imagine he’s still probably going to feel guilty about it for quite a while.

Me, I probably would have fudged. That, or have had the Iron King intervene, I mean he could have sensed his emissaries being in danger, or there could have been other divine intervention on behalf of the cleric or the sentinel perhaps. But this outcome doesn’t necessarily mean the end for those characters. There is always room for resurrection, or even their spirits to live on in undeath, or however death works in Karthun. The game goes on, the story moves forward in new and unexpected ways, and that’s how it should be.

I had a feeling that the Iron King did not consider the well being of this group as high on his priority list. As in, at all. I had figured this as a set up. And, I have no reason to think otherwise. Yes, they got wiped out on the first encounter because of bad rolls, but it was still an ambush. They were still expected.

It was an ambush…because they were heading into fortified enemy territory, not necessarily because Iron King set them up or anything. The IK seems supernatural enough to have strange powers, either because of items or unique abilities from his class or position. He could easily have some sort of earth/iron-based scrying power, coupled with an ability to affect distant areas; or some sort of powerful agent trailing the group, to step in on emergency.

I look forward to seeing how it all plays out. Jeda at least seems to me a prime candidate for some sort of unkillable undead revenant or something that should pop up again…like Deadpool maybe? Just speculative food for thought.

I dunno, I mean, if he has powerful agents in the area with nothing better to do, why bother with the PCs at all? That kind of move would seem extremely “deus ex machina” to me – ironic that it’s the ones who worship “story” that would suggest such a crappy story twist.

You know…I think, in this case…I’d love to say the rocks fall, then roll the dice…pause…give them a cryptic look and tell them to pause. Have them drum up secondary characters, and tell them the other party’s on pause.

Then I’d probably tell them this, but if they trusted me, I might make it a surprise. Have the other characters do the same thing…a few adventures, then hired by the ambassador as a sort of “insurance policy”.

Then the second party “Deus Ex Machina’s” the first, saving them from the falling rocks. From then on, both party’s travel together only until they defeat the grin, then part ways. It could wind up making that final, climactic battle with the BBEG all the more, well, climactic. To have so many heroes gathered together to fight a powerful deity-esque being…kinda get goosebumps thinking about it.

I think it’s worth pointing out that Sam’s decision to let the TPK stand is in line with what he has PREVIOUSLY COMMUNICATED to his players. If they’re paying attention — and his group does — they know that, and they know what to expect. So his decision is not out of line with the expectations of his players. If that expectation hadn’t been set, it’d be a bad call. As it is, it’s entirely in line with the established group’s social contract, and therefore, a good one.

Personally, I’m glad to see the party experience a TPK. I’m never rooting for it, but if it happens it can be a good thing. It reminds the players that there are stakes. Fudging dice, changing the lore on the fly, etc destroys the sense of “risk vs reward” and removes the “game” element. Granted, I don’t have any problem with using an RPG as a basis for collaborative storytelling so long as that’s the understanding of everyone at the table but my groups, much like Sam’s group here, play to “win” which necessitates a way they can absolutely “lose” and a TPK is the simplest, and sometimes most effective form of that loss.

What killed me was some of the Facebook discussion of this arc where people were calling Sam a “terrible DM”. Personally, aside from one rejection fueled grudge-fest, Sam has been the model of the kind of DM I like. Build fair then play to win. Keep to the lore. Let the dice fall as they may, standing in for fate and happenstance is their job.

damn. I’ve yet to ever actually LOSE a character permanently in any game I’ve played through sheer luck. I think I’d be thoroughly depressed. I mean yeah it’s in the game, but for some players like me, each character is treated like either an extension of themselves, or is, in the end, an emotional investment. role-playing comes with risks for some particularly empathetic folks.

I lost a level 13 bard in 3.5e D&D due to the dice (mine and another player’s dice) being total borks on me. Actually we lost half the entire party that way. Rogue failed to spot the Banshee Wail trap and I failed my save to avoid dying by 1…

Awww what an awesome wrap up to this arc. I really, really thing you did a good job. I didn’t know what to expect but this is one of the best wrap up scenes to a story arc in the history of the comic. Bravo, sir, bravo!

Carlos’ shyness and nervousness about doing things with the group probably stems from another group blaming him for things that happened, most likely things that weren’t even remotely his fault. But as far as I recall there hasn’t been anything established on it.

It’s good that the good guys don’t always win! Karthune is turning out to be totally grimdark and metal as hell! I can’t wait to play in it myself when my complete copy arrives! I really hope it isn’t too long before another Karthune arch happens! I’m itching for more! Plus maybe the grin can steal these character’s souls and they come back!

The tragedy of making your own system is that if an unintended TPK happens you’ve still fucked up as a DM, because you either didn’t create enough investment among the players to fight you on it or didn’t balance it properly.

It took, what, a single encounter of bad rolls and a rockfall trap (seriously, who the hell uses a rockfall trap) to kill everyone? Nice job on Karthun Sammy! Man, you sure did a super-good job making death come across as something to be feared and avoided in this setting! If you weren’t a good enough writer to make the prospect of eternal madness for fallen characters feel like a legitimate part of the setting can you imagine the boring-as-tar ‘oh, well, let’s move on!’ reaction a TPK might have gotten?

On a somewhat nicer note, I kind of agree with Brett, to a degree: it IS the munchkin’s duty to have enough tricks up their sleeve to protect the party and the game when the DM decides to start sucking.

So, when the dice decide to go against the players hardcore and results in a TPK, it’s the GM’s fault?

I understand that the GM’s job is to balance the encounters to the players abilities and it’s a special challenge when a GM is working with a system they designed themselves. But there are systems where, even when running a book adventure balanced for low level players, it’s possible for even experienced players with the most Munchkin-y characters to experience a TPK due to bad dice rolls, simply because of how lethal the system is. Legend of the Five Rings (especially the early editions of the game) and Call of Cthulhu leap to mind as a particularly potent examples of this phenomenon.

To me, the fact that Sam is willing to have any encounter be that potentially lethal and the fact that his players are fine with that for the most part (except for Carlos’ initial concern that he’d get blamed for the TPK by the other players) is actually natural and normal. I see Sam as a good GM, who spent the time to put together an encounter that is meant to challenge the players. And often times, when an encounter is challenging for the players, that means sometimes, the dice can go “F*CK YOU!” to the players, and despite what everyone involved wants, and that causes a TPK. After something like that, the best attitude for players to take is the one that Sam’s players are taking, which is “Well, shit happens. Let’s see what other stories we can tell.”

If the players had chosen to protest the situation, I’m sure Sam would have been willing to figure out something to let the players keep their characters, but at some cost. The sign of a good GM and a good group is how they handle the unexpected.

Also, when characters die? Don’t say the GM sucks when the dice go against you or claim the encounter was unbalanced. The simple fact is that your character is usually in a high risk profession in an RPG, which means not many of them live to see old age.

The encounter wasn’t meant to ‘challenge the players’, Queek. We know what the encounter was meant to do.

That’s why all the arguments justifying lethal encounters are irrelevant. Sam wanted that encounter to be a learning encounter, not an all in challenge. That’s where he messed up. I’m not going to argue (again) the sheer over-lethality of this encounter without warning the players that it was an exceptionally dangerous setting, because it doesn’t actually matter. Sam didn’t intend this to be an overly lethal encounter, and even without God-dicing, it would have been. Sam messed up. Sam acknowledged he messed up, so everyone moves on.

Except of course in the comments section, where people continue attempting to justify an explictly designed learning encounter being able to kill the entire party before they got to take more than a spellcast and a move action in the entire campaign.

However, he came clean with the players, and everyone moves on. Any GM/DM/Storyteller who says s/he’s never messed up encounter balance is lying. None of us are perfect. He messed up, they moved on.

Ahem. “I have never messed up encounter balance”.
Why? Because I don’t care about ‘encounter balance’. It isn’t something I even consider. I don’t care if a challenge is too strong, or too weak for the players. The characters get the encounter which is appropriate for the region they’re in, and they decide how to deal with it.

I am running an evil campaign. My players are all level 12. There is a grown-ass copper dragon in a town that they have, several times, seriously considered going to.

If they go there, they will learn something. The odds don’t favor it being a pleasant lesson, but these people are bright enough to know that this is a world where they have to tread carefully. They know there are places that need to be avoided, and that there are places where they can roll over entire cities with ease.

If they go to the town with the copper dragon, they will probably die, or at least some of them will. That would be unpleasant for them, but if they manage it well, they could all survive, too. There’s no way in hell they’d actually kill the dragon, but escape is possible.

Having a world that doesn’t compromise isn’t bad. The fact is that there’s a major difference between an encounter and a preexisting part of the world that the party happens to stumble into.

What LaHaise is describing there is preexisting chunks of world. You don’t attack the 20th level paladin, but if he doesn’t exist until you’re ready to pick a fight, you’re not running DnD: you are playing with teddy bears and occasionally rolling dice.

If the GM wasn’t wanting to challenge them, he wouldn’t have sent them into a confined area, with an ambush that pulls the players into a trap that involves rocks falling. And notice how poorly the players rolled.

Below tens. Which, in systems where high rolls are good, tend to be Bad News for players. Especially low-level players. Especially when the GM rolls better than that.

You sure are reading a lot into what Sam said. He said it wasn’t intended to kill them, just be a regular encounter. But that’s not what you want him to have said; you want him to have said that it was supposed to be a cakewalk, the “one sickly goblin” of encounters. And you’ve banged on about it half a dozen times or so.

I don’t want to run for a table who can’t except that TPKs happen. In fact, I don’t much understand people who dislike TPKs, it opens new routes for story telling, and can even help progress the story of the previous party. In my games, I detest resurrection spells, because they take away from the dramatic, they make dying an easy thing to come back from. Death shouldn’t be that. If a character dies, it is dead. It gives people something to fight for, and it gives people a reason to care about the characters.

Also, in my opinion, the only time a DM starts sucking, is when they’ve lost interest in their story.

People dislike TPKs because they have become invested in their character. When you’ve spent a huge amount of time creating the personality, background, and style of a person, and they get randomly one shotted by a dice roll, this creates disinvestment in the characters. Especially when they happen this early and this arbitrarily.

If the character is just a collection of statistics? Eh. Character death is meaningless, although it may still represent wasted hours of character creation in some systems.

If, on the other hand, you have encouraged the players to roleplay – and they do so properly – any character death is literally a grieving experience. Is character death therefore something to avoid? No. Absolutely not. Death happens, and how you deal with it is part of the roleplay experience – if your players can handle it. On the other hand, it’s a touchy subject. Forcing grief on players without knowing if they can deal with it isn’t just bad DMing, it’s being a dick. (Sam, incidentally, is NOT doing this – he knows all of his players, with the possible exception of Carlos, can cope with char death).

Also – Death gives the players a reason to care about the characters? -shrugs-. If they care about their character, they will object to arbitrary TPKing. In fact, caring about the characters is the main reason people don’t like TPKing. You say you don’t understand those people, but people who care about their characters tend to strongly dislike TPKs.

In fact, about the only thing you accomplish through random TPK is to make people care LESS about the characters. It’s basic psychology. If the thing can be easily and arbitrality taken away from you, you care less, not more, out of basic self defence.

This is part of the game though, random ass dice rolls that can create TPKs. Such is the life of an adventurer. Could Yarfell the Barbarian become an armorer or farmer, sure! Would he avoid a probably untimely death at the end of a kobold’s spear trap, surely. Would he be bored to tears, definitely. PCs go where regular folks fear to tread because there’s adventure, fame, and a huge payoff. The payment is some adventurers don’t make it. That tunnel system you’re in? It was created by ogres and they aren’t the most capable miners so yeah, rocks might fall. Someone’s trapped this lane through so rocks might fall. TPKs are rare. They suck, especially when a DM is just grudge holding or being a douche. Unfortunately they happen though. High risk +high rewards.
The one thing to always remember is this is a game based on random die rolls.

I guess these would be the kind of people never to play Call of Cthulhu or Broken Rooms then. Especially Broken Rooms – where the game is designed around the stages of grief, and the setting itself is specifically traumatic.

But then everyone going in to Call of Cthulu or Broken rooms knows it’s a lethal and traumatic setting. They know what they are getting.

Not every game is about death and madness. Not every game is about lethal encounters. Some games are explictly against this – Seventh Sea, for example, it’s actively impossible to accidentally kill people.

As someone who has written a System, I can tell you that balancing combat only serves to slow the game down and leave less time for the actual fun things, like story telling and roleplaying.

I once had this wonderful little boss fight set up for my players, where they would have to fight a Sanguimancer (blood mage) who had mind controlled a dozen knights and created half as many flesh golems, all of whom could probably kill the PCs no problem.
The archer of the party ended combat mere seconds after it began by shooting the mage in the face as his first action with a rather lucky roll. (It was a long distance shot and the mage was moving.)
Thing is, this situation can be reversed easily. I had another party who were rather close to end game, but a series of bad rolls in a simple bandit encounter resulted in half the party dead and the other half beaten, stripped of all possessions, and left for dead in the middle of the forest.

Careful. That’s the sort of statement that makes someone go “Challenge accepted” and then go make a 5-star-restaurant worthy healthy pizza. Heck, I’m already brainstorming ideas for such a pizza. (Whole wheat dough, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, drizzle of olive oil – all you need) Pizza does not need to be dripping to be good. It just needs to be built on something other than cardboard, topped with something other than rubber, and cooked in something other than a microwave. And with leftovers you can let that last one slide.

Oh, and spices. Can’t forget the spices. Garlic, basil, and oregano are traditional, but there are other possibilities, up to and including salt and pepper. Not too much salt, though – there’s already salt in the cheese, and too much would make it unhealthy.

What would happen if you had fire resist/immunity and walked into the Worldfire? Would you find the blasted, shattered remains of the other continents, or would you find like a multi-dimensional fire. like a bleed into the Plane of Elemental Fire? Is the world of Karthun adrift in the fire plane? If the other continents are still there, are their magic items lootable???

Loved this. I’ve had TPKs which were a mix of unluck on the player’s part and them laughing it up as they went unprepared into ‘certain doom’. Sometimes a TPK has resulted from one player’s overconfidence. As in – low level fighter sees a BIG horrendous monster off in the distance and runs off to fight it. Rest of low level party runs after him because he needs help. Horrendous monster eats well that day.
I’ve also averted a TPKs by having a floor give away, separating party from peril, by having magic go awry or by having some other force attack the thing[s] killing them.
Admittedly, I’ve fudged to save a party if they are just having terrible luck and it’s not bad judgement on their part. But remember, as a referee, we have entire worlds of perils at our command. The adventurers only have each other.

Most of the games I’ve run were with elementary schoolers, so a TPK was never in the cards. That didn’t mean I couldn’t have fun with them a little if they weren’t doing their homework. For a month, those kids were working under the threat of a “Red Mist Dragon” (i.e. will turn their characters into a fine red mist) swooping in to destroy everything if I didn’t get their homework promptly before each week’s gaming session.

Teacher. That was a special class / club deal, where I could spend the first half doing grammar stuff, and whatever I wanted for the rest of it as long as the kids were doing stuff in English. So for one year, we did a running game campaign that was essentially a pastiche of Dragon Quest combined with some ridiculously homebrew rules (many of which got made up on the spot).

I don’t think TPK is neccesarilly a bad thing. As I have more recently game mastered only “Only War” and as it is based on 40K and the imperial meatshields, TPK is kinda what I am supposed to eventually aim at, granted my long term goal is to either get all of them killed or force one of them to turn to chaos so I can pull out another rulebook of same setting. The kill all and describe their demise at the hands of dark eldar/deamons/slaneesh cultists/something worse is how ever the most likely end result taking in account of what my players are like.

It isn’t necessarily, but it’s kind of setting and game feel dependant.

Pulling a TPK in Only War? Yeah, that’s going to happen at some point. But Rogue Trader, on the other hand? Rogue Traders have a lifespan of greater than 15 minutes.

This means that TPKs are fine…in games that are supposed to be lethal. That the players know are lethal, and so can judge their actions accordingly.

TPKs are not fine in games that are supposed to be about heroic romps, in which the players are expecting a lot of slack to enable them to be Heroic (because frankly, being heroic is pretty stupid and will get you killed if the GM is being over-intelligent with the bad guys).

Playing a Heroic Game with players who expect TPKs is not fun. I’ve been running Seventh Sea with a group of people, two of whom have been in a lot of Lethal Games recently, and it shows. They aren’t swashbuckling, they are sneaking carefully forward, avoiding drawing attention to themselves. Similiarly, playing a lethal game with players expecting heroism isn’t fun, because unless you’ve told them that’s what’s happening, they will rightfully get upset or angry at you.

I think the above comic kind of shows this. Sam’s group know that his encounters have the potential to be lethal, so they are quite accepting of this. Carlos, on the other hand, does not know this. He was expecting a heroic tale of fantasy glory. So Carlos was anxious. Luckily, he got reassured by a player very quickly, but it could have gone very badly wrong.

Plus, of course, this isn’t supposed to be a lethal encounter, no matter what the intended lethality of the setting is. Training encounters should never be lethal encounters, because you cannot learn if your character is dead.

Unless I’m missing something with Seventh Sea, which is possible, I don’t see how you’d get a TPK. Barring incredible player stupidity, like everyone openign their eyes during Porte. Or I guess charging at a line of cannon.

But given the game explictly states that someone is not dead unless the enemy specifically decides to kill them AFTER they are unconcious, and it’s a game about Swashbucklers, therefore the GM should be encouraged to take prisoners rather than randomly shiv PCs (if their villains aren’t taking prisoners, they probably aren’t designed as swashbuckling villains)……I don’t see how PC bone-headness matters much. Sure, player stupidity can and will cause them to lose encounters, lose reputation, and be seriously screwed over, but death is written into the rules as rare

Naturally, though it’s bee na while since I last played any game where the demise of the players wasn’t a main selling point, which By the way Only War is pretty much the only one where you are expected to have back up character ready immidiately, exept maybe for Deathwatch(aka suicide squad). And Paranoia any one? granted it does lack permadeath, as long as you have the credits of course.

But I think the key lies in informing your players of the nature of the game and the players them selves. Some, like my group, have very little self preservation, yet manage to survive too often. How does any one survive “feeding” a krak grenade to an Ork, while in close combat no less, is still beyond me.

We usually have a Backup Character idea in case our character die (but we never roll them before the current character dies). I never died with a long-running character, so I het bored with my BC and find another to replace it ALL the time.

My latest one is a druid who loves bear puns WAAAY too much for his own good. He’d wield either a BEARded Axe, or a POLe ARm. I’d name him Theodore Brown-Ear, which shortens to Teddy B-Ear. The whole thing’s just unBEARable.

Often the best stories are the failures.
This was a nice tpk. Ive seen both sides of characters reactions. Ive gotten hour long speeches about how their characters Could Have Died… and ive done the accidental tpk where the PCs say, “soo.. you want us to make new characters?”
This makes me smile. And Bret has an interresting point. Ive had to up the difficulty when faming with old veteran friends.
New characters could be interresting. And Bret back in mage clothes? That could be a mini story arc all its own.

Me, I would have brought them back as nega-zone or undead forced to finish their mission in the altered state to either save their souls or be resurrected (a fun time crunch.) I thought that might be where it was going to see a whole new side or Karathun.

I like to throw in the odd “TPK Encounter” against my players, for two reasons:

1. I need to remind my players that yes, their characters are great heroes, and yes, there is a prophecy surrounding them, but no, that does not make them immortal. Prophecies are not absolute, and heroes are replaceable.

2. I love to see them actually survive encounters that are meant to kill them. Because these are encounters where there is no way to luck into a win. Players who want to survive will think outside the box, and become better players for it.

I know this post is a day late but I just need to know if that poster on the wall of the last frame is a real thing?? Where can I get one? Can you draw that as a one page comic one day?? I would love to print that out and hang it on my cubicle wall…or my bulletin board in the man cave.

I have been reading this arc and trying to figure out if I was ever involved in a TPK. Last night it hit me that I was a GM during one. Back in the day I used to run CyberPunk 2020 with my friends. I created the A-Team and we were on the typical A-Team mission to stop someone from terrorizing someone else. The team got locked in a barn with lots of stuff, but they didn’t build anything, they just broke out. When they went up against the bad guys, without a plan other than ‘Shoot Them’, they actually got killed in the process. After the game we talked about it and all the players then realized that if they would have used the parts in the barn they could have easily survived and won. Since this was a one off game, nobody was attached to their characters other than what they were to them from the TV Show.

It’s been YEARS since I ran a GURPS-based Star Wars game that saw the team accidentally take out a toy factory (they thought they were attacking an evil base and were set up by a saboteur). I still hear the occassional “Kill the teddy bears!” and “Who double-checks the coordinates?!” from that session. Most memorable, however, was the pall of gloom as they heard what they had done and one player, much like Carlos, said, “This game sucks. I quit.” It took some sweet-talking on my part (and his girlfriend’s) to say, “Hey, today didn’t go according to plan. But next week, vengeance is yours. Probably.”

Just to throw it out there: I tend to do, and respect from the GM, a sort of Mixed bag on the “let the dice decide”. Usually as a GM you have a story arc you wish to let unfold .. like a book. and to do that, you can’t kill off everyone in the first chapter or second chapter. There is certainly no rule that says the GM has to take the dice rolls that fall- and nor should they if it interferes with good storytelling.

But, there does come a point in the book, where the story has reached the point where characters will start dying.. perhaps all of them. I do not think its wrong to tell players that they have reached this tipping point. (and I am not saying you can’t kill off people before this point.. but that you curb the chances a bit during development).